45
SEAN FELT LIKE his legs could carry him no further. His feet ached, and he could feel the moist heat of blisters inside his socks. It had become a constant struggle to keep Louise moving. It seemed every twenty yards she would demand to rest, sitting down on the pine needles, whether he told her to or not. Twice he had shouted at her, another time he had hauled her up by her arm, and each time she had cried hacking, bitter sobs.
‘I don’t want to be mean,’ he’d said, ‘but we have to keep walking.’
And so they had journeyed for at least another hour, maybe more, the ground sometimes rising, sometimes falling. Sean had no sense of which direction they were headed, and for the life of him he couldn’t remember if the sun travelled east-to-west or the other way around. All he could do was make a point of keeping the sun at his right shoulder, knowing at least it was one constant direction.
‘I’m not walking anymore,’ Louise called from behind.
Sean turned to see her flop down on the ground once more. He trudged back and sat down beside her.
‘All right,’ he said. ‘Five minutes, that’s all. Then we need to go.’
He pulled a water bottle from the bag, unscrewed the cap, and offered it to her. She took it and swallowed, before handing it back. He took a mouthful, washed it around his teeth and tongue, then stowed the bottle away.
‘I’m not walking anymore today,’ Louise said. She ran her fingers through the browned pine needles, making small tracks.
‘We have to,’ Sean said.
‘No, we don’t. We can make a camp and walk some more tomorrow.’
‘How can we make a camp?’ he asked. ‘We don’t have a tent.’
‘You can make a shelter out of branches,’ she said. ‘I saw it on TV.’
‘I don’t know how to do that. It’ll get cold out here tonight.’
‘Then we can make a fire.’
‘I don’t know how to do that, either. You know, we’re way up high here, like in the mountains. There might be bears. And mountain lions. Maybe wolves, I don’t know.’
‘Shut up,’ Louise said, pouting.
‘It’s true,’ he said.
‘No, it’s not. How come I didn’t see any?’
‘Because they mostly come out at night. That’s why we have to keep moving till we find help. We don’t want to be out here when the bears and the wolves wake up.’
‘You’re telling lies, and I’m going to tell Mom when she comes to get us.’
Sean reached out, took her hand, even though it stung his raw palm. They’d held hands a lot over the last few days. He couldn’t remember the last time they’d held hands. Probably not since she was a toddler.
‘Listen to me carefully,’ he said. ‘You remember you asked me earlier, were we going to die out here in the wilderness? I said no, right?’
Louise nodded, sniffed, wiped her nose on her forearm.
‘I was lying then,’ Sean said. ‘Truth is, we might. If we don’t keep moving, if we don’t find help, then we might die out here. Maybe not tonight, but tomorrow, or the next day. We’ll die and we’ll never see Mom again.’
Louise began to cry, her face red, shoulders hitching.
‘I’m not saying it just to be mean,’ he said. ‘I just need you to understand why we have to keep walking. So we can find help, someone who can call Mom, or even take us to her. You want to see Mom again, don’t you?’
Louise sniffed and said, ‘Yeah.’
‘Then we need to keep walking. You ready?’
She wiped her hand across her eyes and said, ‘Yeah.’
‘All right, then. Let’s go.’
Sean got to his feet, helped Louise to hers. He went to move off, but she tugged at his hand. When he turned back to her, she wrapped her arms around his middle, pressed her face into his chest.
‘I love you,’ she said.
He embraced her and said, ‘I love you too.’
They set off, walked hand-in-hand through the trees, the sun still at Sean’s right shoulder. Somewhere along the way, they began to sing. Nursery rhymes, songs he hadn’t sung since kindergarten, and he belted them out now, hearing his own voice echoing through the forest. Old MacDonald had a farm, ee-aye-ee-aye-o, Bingo was his name-o, and more. Sean went light-headed, not enough air for singing this high up, but he didn’t care. He sang anyway, as loud as he could.
He lost track of time as they journeyed on, so he had no idea of the hour when the trees thinned and he saw clear air up ahead.
‘What’s that?’ Louise asked.
‘Dunno,’ he said, quickening his step, pulling his sister behind him. He would have run if he could. Moments later, they stepped out of the trees, Sean expecting to see another clearing. But this was something entirely different.
They stood at the top of a shallow slope, weeds and grass leading down to a flat surface that went on and on. Like a frying pan, sloping sides and a flat bottom, but it wasn’t round. It was more like a vague oval, and it stretched as far to his left and right as he could see. Directly in front he could see the other side of the basin, and yet more trees. Between here and there, an expanse of bald cracked earth, like some alien landscape from a space story.
‘What is it?’ Louise asked.
‘I think it used to be a lake,’ Sean said. ‘But it’s all dried up.’
‘Where did all the water go?’
‘Dunno,’ he said. ‘Evaporated, I guess.’
‘I know what that is,’ Louise said, sounding pleased with herself. ‘It’s when the sun sucks up all the water, then it turns to rain someplace else.’
‘That’s right,’ he said. ‘I guess that’s what happened.’
A movement caught Sean’s eye, off in the distance, above the trees. A great bird circling over the pines. He shielded his eyes with his hand, peered at the wide wings that barely moved as it glided in a wide arc. It seemed so far away, yet it was so big. Its body and wings a deep dark brown, its head pure white, along with its delta-shaped tail.
He pointed. ‘You know what that is?’
‘What?’
‘It’s a bald eagle,’ he said. ‘I’m pretty sure it is.’
‘It’s big,’ she said.
‘Yeah. You know how lucky we are? They’re rare. Most people never ever see one out in the wild. Look, it’s going to land.’
They both watched as it glided to the top of one of the tallest pines, Sean guessed at least a mile away, maybe more. The eagle slowed itself, its wings drawn up, its feet extended. The pine swayed under the weight of it, side to side.
Above the tree, high in the air, the faintest ribbon of gray, no more than a wisp.
Sean shielded his eyes, squinted, tried to focus.
Was it? Yes. Yes, it was.
‘Smoke,’ Sean said, and a giddy laugh escaped him.
‘What?’
‘There’s smoke. Somebody made a fire. Somebody’s there.’
He tightened his grip on Louise’s hand, started down the slope to the dry lakebed, the ghostly finger of smoke fixed in his sight.